Scrabble with the British.

So, the other week I hung out with my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend (the brother of the 2 siblings I'm good friends with), and we played Scrabble.

I tried a new professional Scrabble strategy that I read about, where you take a temporary hit on points and save consonants or vowels and play excess consonants or vowels, in order to maximize the chance of a more well-balanced rack on the next draw.

You know what?

It didn't work at first, and then it did.

After my friend played "AXES", I used my better rack that I had acquired to top that off with a "W" to make "WAXES" as part of the word "GLOW" extending onto a triple word score, and racked up the point.

Similarly, I used some vowels and sat on my Q and U, and then you know what, it opened up where I could play "QUIET" and the Q was on a triple letter score and the entire word was on a double word score.

I really mopped up that game, and it's funny to think about that up until 2 games ago, I sucked at Scrabble.

Then, I learned that strategy where you add on a beginning or an end to a word and score with both new words (I had always done intersection and just scored off one word; that was very stupid now, in retrospect, but I guess I just didn't think that much about it, or care).

Now, I have my new strategy.

Next, if I was serious, I'd memorize all the possible 2-letter words, which is also what I hear professional players do.

Anyhow, the greatest moment of levity in the game was when my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend turned to me and was like, "Is there such a word as AUK?".

At that, I was like, "Yes, A - U - K," but as soon as he heard "Yes," he started looking intently at his rack again and tuning me out.

"You're sure AUK is a word?", he was like, "O - R- C?", and at that he pulled out tiles and laid out "ORC" on the board.

At first I was confused at what was happening, but then I realized that he pretty much pronounces the words "AUK" and "ORC" the same, and I misheard him at first!!!!!!!

British people are ridiculous.